Enhancing the Anti-Tumor Activity of Breast Cancer-Specific Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes

Abstract

Directing the immune system to attack tumors represents a potential powerful non-toxic approach for the treatment of breast cancer. Our goal is to ultimately engineer the interleukin-2 receptor (IL-2R) in cytotoxic T cells (CTL) to control signal transduction through this receptor and to improve the in vivo efficacy upon adoptive transfer to a tumor-bearing host. To this aim we have prepared a series of chimeric IL-2R constructs and show that signaling of one such pair appears to be induced by a small molecular weight dimerizing drug. We also established a sensitive in vivo animal tumor model system to be used to characterize such engineered" CTL. The initial studies in this model indicate that unprimed tumor-specific T cells are essentially ignorant of growing tumor in vivo. By contrast, tumor growth is initially inhibited when adoptively transferred to tumor-bearing mice.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA381119

Entities

People

  • Thomas R. Malek

Organizations

  • University of Miami

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Blood
  • Breast Cancer
  • Cell Physiological Processes
  • Cells
  • Cellular Structures
  • Chemistry
  • Immune System
  • Laboratory Animals
  • Lymph Nodes
  • Lymphatic System
  • Lymphocytes
  • Materials
  • Molecules
  • Peptide Growth Factors
  • Peptides
  • Proteins
  • T Lymphocytes

Fields of Study

  • Medicine

Readers

  • Immunology
  • Molecular Genetics
  • Oncology (Cancer Research).